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crop top

One of my favorite stores in NYC is the Piperlime store in Soho. Yes, I am a frequent shopper of their online shop, but their brick and mortar spot is just.so.good. They’ve revamped and no longer have the cute signs that correspond to their online categories (“Girl on a Budget”, “Splurge Worthy”, etc), but it’s still great. Right now they are stocked full of sparkle, fringe, brocade and tables overflowing with holiday shindig goodness. I took my mom downtown for a little retail therapy on Sunday and it was awesome. (Say what you will about retail therapy, a little dosage never hurt anyone.) We laughed over fringe covered sweaters that my husband would undoubtedly hate, debated faux leather skirts, oogled shelves of booties, and shared a dressing room to snag sale rack sweaters. I walked out with this cropped sweater and am so pumped to wear it throughout the upcoming months. I didn’t actually purchase a crop top over the summer, and it seems strange to embrace the skin baring trend as the temps dip below freezing, but I’ve found my inspiration and am ready to bare some upper abs…with a coat just in case I (definitely) overindulge at dinner.

Here’s a confession: I was never that into stripes. This seems completely off the wall with the crazed obsession with stripes these days, but I just never hopped on board. They always felt a little preppy or traditional. Plus my mom always said under no circumstances should you wear horizontal stripes across your derriere or it will look the size of a barn. That will pretty much kill any stripe affection.

Then I started to see the below. Not just plain striped tees, but stripes on steroids. Thick and thin stripes overlayed in one outfit, almost always a skirt and top, and I was on board. I had been looking for a great printed pencil skirt to wear with a slouchy tee à la the apparent French girl uniform, and this gave that skirt more options!

I just so happened to find the perfect pencil skirt made of a very thick (ahem flattering) fabric at my go-to Joe Fresh. I’ve worn it once with a blouse, but had yet to find it’s perfect striped mate until I revisited early this week (it really is an issue that I live so close.) While I love the idea of a crop top, this combined with my fitted pencil skirt and love for large meals sounded like an issue. I’m going to hold on the crop top for a floral skirt in my closet, and test out one of the options below instead. I think I prefer the thin strap on the right, but maybe the large contrast of the stripe on the left, what are your thoughts?